


Unsmited: A Fan Fiction Tribute to The Lord of the Rings

by Shawn Michel de Montaigne (ShawnMichel)



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3258542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShawnMichel/pseuds/Shawn%20Michel%20de%20Montaigne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sauron is dead; the poisonous dark fume over the land is lifting; and the Orcs have been smited--swallowed up by a vengeful earth that held them in hateful contempt. All but one, that is. This is his story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Survivor

_And from the Plateau of Gorgoroth he did stumble, bloodied and broken, through the lightless valley of Minas Morgul. Smoke riseth behind him, as well as the dying cries of tens of thousands of his kind, who thus were being swallowed back into the earth, which claimed them with great vengeance and anger._

_Blind with the urge to survive, he did not see that he had passed from the valley. His vision was trained on his feet and the ground thereof, and he did not notice the change from barren, sharp rock to tall swaying grass and soft yellow sunshine. Somewhere in a large green field the world swimmeth in his sight, and he fell limply in it, unconscious. Eth._

 

~~*~~

 

HE CAME to squinting. The sun was directly overhead. He hated the sun. He opened his eyes slowly, his hands over his face, and said, “Grrrachth!” which meant nothing. He had grass in his mouth.

 

   He rolled over with a sustained grunt and spat it out. It was attached to a fair-sized glob of dirt.

 

   “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrachth!”

 

   Noises: the sound of metal clanking on metal, horses snorting, the footsteps of many nearby.

 

   _Men!_

 

   He stopped spitting and hacking and tried to come up to his hands and knees to take a look around, but stopped when his back flashed agony along with his left knee and ankle.

 

   He still had dirt and grass in his mouth. And some up his nose, too.

 

   He licked his tongue up and down his sleeve, and tried picking the dirt out of his nose, which only pushed it farther up. He went to curse under his breath in his native Black Speech, but stopped, confused. The words … he knew them, but something—not the grass—kept them from his tongue.

 

   He made another push and got to his hands and knees. With pain spiking through his body, he very cautiously grunted and groaned his way towards the sound.

 

   He had passed out on a small knoll. At its summit, and back on his stomach, he parted the grass to the degree he thought wise, and looked.

 

   It was the army of Gondor!

 

   They marched in a single wide column left to right for as far as he could see in both directions, maybe a hundred yards away. The horses snorted, and the men’s armor clinked, as did their weapons, but no one spoke. Their faces spoke of exhaustion and relief bought and paid for in blood. Blood his kind was responsible for spilling.

 

   If they spied him, they’d kill him.

 

   He dropped back to his stomach and breathed as shallowly as he could. It was all he could do to remain still: fear screamed at him to crawl away, and when it was safe, run, run, RUN!

 

   But he knew he couldn’t. He probably couldn’t even walk. His back, knee, and ankle … felt broken. He wasn’t sure. Worse, he wasn’t sure how he’d been injured. It had all been a blur.

 

   He’d lain next to an ant hill. Ants crawled on him and made him itch. But he dared not move, even when some started biting.

 

   Hours passed.

 

   Did he hate them—men? Sure. But enough to kill them?

 

   Despite being born and bred to kill them and swarm madly over the lands of Middle Earth, he hadn’t actually killed one. He’d stayed alive by resourcefulness and cunning, and by _pretending_ to be a hardened killer. But then, when the slaughtering got underway, he would be conveniently somewhere else. No one of his kind had ever noticed him; they were too busy spitting things like, “He looks frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrresh! Why don’ts we eat him?”

 

   If these men discovered him here, would he make a final stand and try to kill as many of them as he could before the inevitable happened? Did he have it in him? Or would he merely lie here prone and let them skewer him?

 

   Prone, oddly and macabrely, sounded better.

 

   They didn’t even look all that appealing, despite the yawning, biting emptiness in his stomach. He’d eaten man-flesh in the past. It wasn’t all that. He’d passed more often than not when a fallen soldier was feasted on. At least at the beginning. As the war dragged on and resources dried up, hunger pushed him to join in. But he took no real pleasure in it. Not like his comrades, who couldn’t seem to get enough of man-thighs and man-breasts and man-buttocks.

 

   He glanced over his shoulder, grateful. That hateful sun was finally setting. Not a single cloud had passed overhead this entire miserable day.

 

   And then he started.

 

   _The sun was setting!_

 

   Men didn’t march in the night—not unless they absolutely have to. He had learned that in basic training, which was little more than being whipped to hurry here and there, and sergeants screaming, _“DON’T YOU KNOW THIS IS WAAAAAAAAAAAR?”_

 

   Men didn’t march in the night! And there were still many hundreds of them filing past! They’d soon set up camp! If he didn’t get off this knoll _right now_ , it was a sure thing he’d be discovered!

 

   Grunting and swallowing back squeals, he eased himself very slowly off the knoll. This made the ants on him even unhappier, and they bit him without mercy, making him slap at himself to get them off.

 

   The sun was almost down when he got to a cluster of half-dead scrub hanging over a shallow gorge with a quietly gurgling creek at its bottom. He was filthy, and his clothing was damp, and bugs of various kinds crawled over him, some of which he ate. He didn’t stop at the scrub, but tried to get to the water, which was maybe ten or twelve feet down. He lost his footing and dropped hard on his butt, which hurt, but not that badly, for he had landed in tall grass. He cursed in the language of men (which was strangely easy to do), then twisted about and dipped his face full in the stream and drank his fill. He came up and wiped his chin and looked up at the pink light draining into a steely deep blue. He heard talking and laughing, and grunted up against the gorge, which was less rock than loose earth held precariously in place by wiry foliage and fungus.

 

   After a time, and with great effort, he pulled himself to the lip and looked.

 

   Sure enough, the army of Gondor was setting up camp. At the top of the knoll, where he had been, were sentries and several tents lighted from within. Someone was strumming an instrument, and fires blazed with groups of soldiers sitting around them. He could smell cooking, and his mouth watered.

 

   He had been very lucky—twice. He had avoided being slaughtered, and then swallowed by the vengeful earth itself (!), and now, as he clung to the side for his life, a third stroke of luck: the escarpment to his immediate right shielded him from view from the four or five soldiers who’d discovered the creek and were filling flasks and wiping dirt and blood off their faces.

 

   He held on, the strength in his forearms failing by the second. The earth beneath his fingertips started giving way, and he clutched wildly for the grass an inch or two farther on, his cheek cemented against a damp ball of fungus, his eyes wide with terror. He breathed heavily. Against every effort not to, he squealed.

 

   The men suddenly stopped talking and washing. He heard weapons sing as they were pulled from scabbards. One of them said: “Did you hear that? It sounded like an Orc! C’mon!”

 

   This was the end for him. He knew it. He knew he didn’t have the fight in him to face them bravely. He’d die squealing and skewered.

 

   They were twenty feet away, then ten, then …

 

   A horn sounded.

 

   “That’ll be the lieutenant,” said one. “C’mon.”

 

   “What about the Orc?”

 

   “Ah, it ain’t an Orc. Probably just a wild boar. We’ll come back in the morning and get ‘im!”

 

   “Let’s get up the hill, boys. The lieutenant will have our asses.”

 

   “I don’t see why. He’s got enough ass hanging off him for an entire platoon!”

 

   They laughed, then turned around and left.

 

   When he was sure they were away, he released his grip and fell back to his butt, where he lay heaving and utterly exhausted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He shook weakly. Stars twinkled cold and distant overhead. The night was total. Aside from the fires of the men’s camp, nothing could be seen. The occasional waft of food tempted his nose and made him shake more. He was starving.

 

   He turned over and crawled back to the stream and drank. He wasn’t thirsty, but the water sated the gnawing in his stomach, if only for a little while. He got to his knees, biting back squeals, then to his feet. He couldn’t straighten up, and his left leg felt like it had been crushed. He had to put all his weight on his right, and that made him totter and fall to his side.

 

   He wasn’t going anywhere. Possibly forever.

 

   What was scariest was that he increasingly didn’t care if it _was_ forever.

 

   He lay there and stared up at the unreachable stars, and knew that he’d still be here in the morning, and the men would likely discover him, and that would be that.

 

   He had to pee. It took some doing to get on his side. Finished, he didn’t bother closing his breeches.

 

   He knew he could sleep, and eventually he did. It was sleep that came with utter fatigue, not to mention mounting apathy for his dire state. The entirety of his kind was gone, swallowed by a world contemptuous of its existence. It was obvious he wasn’t meant to survive, to live. The world had spoken—and it was men it favored.

 

   He gave a final hiss between his teeth, and growled in their language: “If ya don’t wants me, then come and gets me.”

 

   He hoped the soldiers heard. He didn’t care.

 

   With that he fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He woke with the hateful sun in his eyes and a young human female staring down at him.

 

 **~~*~~**  
**[Shawn Michel de Montaigne](https://shawnmicheldemontaigne.blogspot.com/)**


	2. Krapp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The young human does something unexpected: she gives aid and comfort (and a delicious chicken sandwich) to him--an Orc! Read on!

  _And the young human female did speaketh._

 

~~*~~

 

“Hi! Are you an Orc?”

 

   He stared up.

 

   He should’ve been like his now-dead brethren: he should’ve seen his opportunity and grabbed her and eaten her alive. She was probably quite tender. But even with death staring him in the face, he couldn’t force himself to look at this girl like that. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. He went to speak in the Black Tongue, but what came out instead was English:

 

   “Orc. Yes … starving. Legs … broken. Don’t … know.”

 

   He gasped for air, amazed at himself, and amazed at her. The juvenile girl seemed utterly unterrified.

 

   “Men …” he said. “Army … Gondor.”

 

   She understood. “They left early this morning. Didn’t you hear them?”

 

   He shook his head. It was a genuine miracle they didn’t discover him lying here and finish him. He gazed up at the girl, whose face was upside down in his vision.

 

   Her home must be close by, he reasoned. If so, it was smack-dab in the middle of Orc territory. Or … it was.

 

   She knelt at his shoulder and patted it consolingly. “I will bring back some food. Don’t go anywhere, Mr. Orc, okay?”

 

   She sprang to her feet.

 

   Before he could croak out another (English!) syllable, she turned and ran off.

 

   He raised his arms over his face to shield it from the sun, and closed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She returned hours later. The sun by that point had been thankfully occluded by large puffy clouds. A breeze had kicked up and cooled him as well. He wheezed in his weakness and waited.

 

   “It’s human food, Mr. Orc. I hope you don’t mind.”

 

   She put a plate down by his shoulder and stood and watched him.

 

   He could smell it. Fowl of some kind. Chicken? His mouth was suddenly watering. He pushed himself to an elbow and looked down at the plate.

 

   It was chicken in between two thick slices of bread. He grabbed it with his free hand and stuffed it whole into his mouth.

 

   “Wow!” exclaimed the girl. “That’s impressive! When I try that at home, my mom gets really upset!”

 

   He chewed manically, swallowed. It was delicious. He looked up at her.

 

   “Are you thirsty?” she asked.

 

   He glanced at the stream a few feet away, then back up at her. She followed his gaze and nodded in understanding.

 

   “Are you still hungry?”

 

   “Hungry,” he rasped, still amazed at the ease with which English came to his tongue. “Hungry.”

 

   “If you come to my house, I can feed you more.”

 

   She lifted the empty plate and put it in the pack behind her. “Here. Let me help you.”

 

   She grabbed his shoulder—again, without fear or trepidation—and said, “Sit up. Can you?”

 

   With her help, he sat up. He looked at her. “Legs. Broken. I think … broken …”

 

   “Roll up your pant legs. Let me look,” she offered.

 

   She came around to face him and knelt at his right knee. With her help, he rolled up the bottoms of his torn and filthy pants.

 

   She rubbed her chin as she studied his legs. “Hmmm. Well, now, let’s take a look …” She shrugged. “That’s what our physician says when I get sick. I think it helps.”

 

   She went back to rubbing her chin in a very professional and studious manner while visually examining his legs. She reached cautiously and touched the right one, then gently squeezed his calf. “Does this hurt?”

 

   He felt no pain and shook his head. She reached for his knee, gave it a squeeze. That did hurt, and he squealed. She released it like it was suddenly hot. “I’m sorry, Mr. Orc! I did not mean to hurt you!”

 

   “It’s … okay,” he rasped. “Okay. Knee. Not broken … just … sprained. I will be … all right.”

 

   She looked horrified that she’d hurt him. To help her confidence more than anything else, he offered, “Would you … check the other one, please, young physician?” The sound of easy English coming to his lips felt so odd that it made him queasy.

 

   She nodded very tentatively and reached for the other knee. She gave it a very light squeeze. It didn’t hurt, and he told her.

 

   “My … hip … that side. And … back. Injured.”

 

   “And your knee,” she said.

 

   “I can … stand … with your … help. Please, young physician. I would be … most … grateful.”

 

   She helped him stand. It was very painful, and he squealed, and that scared her. But she did not abandon him.

 

   On his feet, he leaned against her as little as he was able. Under his arm, she gazed up at him, an unsure smile glancing her lips. “Can you walk? Our house is just up this stream, no more than a mile.” She motioned with her chin towards a tree-covered hill. The creek meandered out of the shadows there. It would be a very difficult trek.

 

   “I … can … try … if you … if you are willing to … to help.”

 

   “Let’s go,” she said, and together they took their first steps together.

 

   The pain of it was excruciating, and he had to stop often for rest, many times after taking no more than five or ten steps. But eventually the big trees drew near.

 

   “Orc,” he told her. “I’m … Orc … enemy … of humans. Why … why help me … young human?”

 

   Her face was covered in sweat, and it appeared that she was approaching exhaustion. They stopped just a hundred or so feet away from the welcome shade.

 

   “Rothtia,” she said as she caught her breath. “That’s … my name. My mother calls me Tia. You can too.”

 

   “Tia,” he said.

 

   She smiled.

 

   “Why … why help … me, Tia?”

 

   She shrugged under his armpit. “Because you need it.”

 

   “But …” he rasped. “I … am … Orc.”

 

   She shrugged again.

 

   “Your mother …” he said.

 

   “She always told me that if I wanted to go to Heaven, that I should look for the good in all God’s creatures. Besides,” she went on, “we’ve known many bad men, as bad as Orcs. No offense, Mr. Orc. We could find no good in them, try as we might. One of them—a soldier of Gondor—hurt her real bad once. Ever since that happened, the Orcs left us alone. C’mon.”

 

   With that, they limped into the shade. She lowered him against a tree next to the creek, which burbled happily. She opened her pack and filled two cups at the creek and brought them back. They drank.

 

   He was covered in sweat and the shade cooled him, as did the water, which was delicious.

 

   “What is your name, Mr. Orc?”

 

   His name, in the Black Tongue, was Krasphé. When he tried to pronounce it, it stuck in his mouth like a thick paste.

 

   He tried coughing to get it out. Tia stared at him, alarmed.

 

   “Are you all right?” she said urgently, standing. “Can I do something to help you?”

 

   “My … _name_ …” he rasped, spitting, “… _name_ … Kras …p. Kra … s … _p_. KRA … - _cough!_ \- _P … P_! KRRRRAP-P- _P-P_!”

 

   His chest heaving, he gave up.

 

   “Good to meet you, Mr. Krapp,” said Tia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The home was uphill a good way, which made the trek that much more difficult. They eventually came upon a trail.

 

   “This is ours,” she gasped from under his armpit. “Not far now, Mr. Krapp.”

 

   He looked up. The trail started out as groomed dirt climbing over and running in between thick tree roots. Stonework covered it a hundred feet on. From there it snaked through a stand of several very large trees to the right and disappeared. From that direction a faint call sounded out: “Tia? Tia? Where are you?”

 

   “I’m here, Mom!”

 

   The faint voice came back: “Where is ‘here’?”

 

   “The trailhead! I need your help!”

 

   “Coming!”

 

   Krapp (he couldn’t even pronounce his Orc name to himself!) felt fear flood through him. He was an Orc. The human mother wouldn’t understand her daughter helping him. She’d call on men to dispose of him. It was inevitable …

 

   She appeared several minutes later. When she saw what Tia was holding up, she stared. Krapp saw fear in her eyes … but only for a moment. Tia must have seen it too, because she blurted out: “He’s hurt, Mom. His name is Krapp. He’s _hurt_. You always told us we should look out for those who need our help. He’s nice, Mom, really he is!”

 

   Tia’s mother stared … and then cautiously approached. A foot away she stopped. She hesitated for a long, tense moment. Tia waited breathlessly; Krapp could feel her body become rigid in expectation.

 

   “Mr. Krapp,” said Tia’s mother. “You indeed look hurt. Let me help …”

 

   And with that she moved to his left shoulder, where she threw his arm around her shoulder. Together the two human females helped Krapp limp to their home.

 

 **~~*~~**  
**[Shawn Michel de Montaigne](https://shawnmicheldemontaigne.blogspot.com/)**


	3. New Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the same miracle that saved him from the destruction that claimed all of the rest of his kind, Krapp finds shelter and new friends. Read on!

_So did the Orc findeth rest and raiment, food and drinketh. And new friends._

 

~~*~~

 

HE TURNED over. He instantly wished he hadn’t, and turned back. The sun was in that direction. Though Tia’s home was in high forest, the sun still peeked through the boughs and through the drapes and into his eyes. Even though they were closed, it was still too bright. He grunted angrily.

 

   They put him in her room after showing him the washroom and bathroom, and after cleaning his wounds and binding his injured ankle, elbow, knees, and hip, and after feeding him.

 

   “You’re in rough shape,” said Tia’s mother, who told him her name was Andylyr. “You’ve been through hell and back.”

 

   He watched her. “Hell … yes …”

 

   He had watched in astonishment as the very earth opened and swallowed his kind as the Great Eye of Sauron crumbled and exploded and was gone. Lightning flashed and the lava mountain exploded … and there were the humans, unharmed! It was as though the gods had judged the whole of Orckind! The humans stood there— _unharmed!_

 

   _How_ did he survive? _Why_ did he survive? The questions gnawed at him incessantly. So did another: _Was he the last Orc left alive?_

 

   He asked Andylyr. She looked up from her work wrapping his ankle and shook her head sadly.

 

   “I know the war is over, Mr. Krapp, and I know Sauron is gone. There was a great explosion and the skies lit up and the earth shook, and then the gloom lifted. We knew then that he was gone. We haven’t seen other Orcs since. That’s all we know. I’m sorry.”

 

   They fed him after he washed. They let him sit with them at his table and treated him like one of their own. He ate with his hands and did his very best to control himself and to keep the food from splashing them or getting everywhere.

 

   The meal was delicious, and he marveled that such was so. It was as though his Orc innards had developed a sudden taste for it! As the light drained from the forest and the hearth warmed the home, Krapp felt drowsiness like a heavy blanket cover him. Tia and Andylyr helped him to Tia’s room and laid him down on her bed.

 

   He had always heard about human beds—how soft they were, how comfortable, how warm. Orcs had always laughed in derision about it. It spoke to humans’ great weakness and softness. The great Orc Commander Shtrack proudly slept on rusty nails and had his corporals assault him twice nightly with hammers. He pissed over cliff edges in high winds and leaned his huge arse over open fires to take a dump. If he got burned, he yelped in delight. That was the standard all Orcs were to aspire to.

 

   Krapp had found it way over the top.

 

   Tia and her mother covered him and left him in peace. He was asleep before they closed the door.

 

   The light in Tia’s room was too bright now that it was morning, and so he rose. He looked down at Tia’s bed, and then bent closer. Though he had washed the night before, he was still so dirty—as were his threadbare clothes—that he had left an imprint of his person on her clean sheets.

 

   An Orc wouldn’t care about such things. Or would one? If he was the last one left alive, so blessed by the gods who had extirpated the rest of his kind, then it stood to reason that the gods _wanted_ him to care, as he was doing right now.

 

   He _did_ care. He winced at the outline, then hissed between gritted teeth. He scratched behind his ears and looked down on his person and tried cursing in the Black Tongue, but couldn’t. What came out was, “Piggy schtupping sucky stupid flat bastard-thing.”

 

   (What the hell did “schtupping” mean?)

 

   In any case, the little human’s bed was a mess—and he was responsible for it. Did it matter now that Orcs wouldn’t have given it even a moment’s notice? _He_ very likely was the entire Orc race now. _He_ would decide what Orcs did or didn’t do!

 

   He opened the door and went to the kitchen. He looked out the window over the basin. Tia was in the garden tending it. She was humming. He listened with an empty smile on his face.

 

   Smiling. For Orcs it was a reflex action reserved solely for moments of barbaric cruelty and joyous malevolence, _not_ for moments of innocent sweetness. It was enough to shake him from his reverie.

 

   There was fresh water in the basin; he went to dip his face in it and drink his fill, but stopped. Humans used cups. There was one next to the basin; he grabbed it and dipped it in and emptied it in two gulps, then did it again, then again. He put the cup down as Tia began a new song. He could smell food—but it was nowhere to be seen. He was very hungry.

 

   Instead of tearing the house apart, as he wanted to, he stepped outside and went to his new friend, who beamed up at him from her work.

 

   “Krapp!” she yelled, and sprang to her feet. As innocent as the melody she had been humming, she ran to him and threw her arms around him. “You look so much better! How do you feel?”

 

   It was only then that he became aware of it: his injuries … were gone. All of them!

 

   His knees, his ankle, his hip, his back … It was as though he had never been hurt!

 

   She squeezed him tighter. Unsure what to do, he put his arms around her and held her back and blankly considered the miracle of his newfound health.

 

   “I feel … I feel … better,” he rasped absentmindedly.

 

   “Oh _good!_ ” she cried into his chest. She let him go. “Wanna help me with the garden?”

 

   “Y-Yes … yes.”

 

   She must have sensed his hunger, because she exclaimed, “Oh my, where _are_ my manners? You must be famished! Momma left you a plate before she left for the village this morning. Come on—I’ll show you where it is!”

 

   She wiped her hands on her apron and turned to walk into the house. The dirt on her hands reminded him, and he croaked out, “I … your bed …” He shook his head. “Dirt. Clothes. Sheets.” He grabbed the bottom of his torn shirt. “Forgive me, young human.”

 

   She seemed confused by what he was trying to say, but it didn’t trouble her for long. She took him by his hand and said, “Food. Don’t worry about my bed. C’mon.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

He ate ravenously. Tia watched him, fascinated. When he finished, which was in just a handful of seconds, she hurried to get him more. She returned with his plate piled twice as high as before and sat excitedly and waited.

 

   He stared at the food, then at her, then at the table and the floor. There was food on both.

 

   He dug in again, but with the brakes on, as he had the previous evening in the presence of the human mother. He swallowed a handful of fried potatoes and glanced at her.

 

   She grabbed the unused napkin next to his plate and said, “Hold on. You’ve got a big chunk on your chin.”

 

   She reached and wiped his chin. He stared at the cloth.

 

   “It’s called a napkin,” she told him. “It’s used to keep your face clean while you eat.”

 

   He took it from her. There was a design on the cloth: a house in a forest.

 

   “Momma made it. She’s really talented at things like that.”

 

   “Why …” he rasped “… why do humans need to keep their faces clean … while eating?”

 

   She shrugged. “I know, right? I asked Momma about it once, and she told me that it’s ‘manners’. ”

 

   “ ‘Manners’?”

 

   She shrugged again. “They’re like … like … laws. Yeah, laws. Do this and do that. Don’t do this and don’t do that.”

 

   “Why?”

 

   She thought for a long time. “I don’t honestly know.”

 

   “Have I broken laws? If so, forgive me, little one. I shall clean the table and floor right away—”

 

   He went to get up, but Tia grabbed his arm. “Don’t worry about it! We can get it later. You haven’t broken any of _my_ laws, so don’t worry.”

 

   He sat back down. “You have your own laws?”

 

   She nodded happily. “Don’t you?”

 

   He looked up. “I don’t … know.”

 

   “Momma has laws. I should teach you them so you don’t break them later. They are more important than my laws.”

 

   “Why?”

 

   “Because she’s Momma!”

 

   “You are most kind, little one.”

 

   “Tia. Call me Tia.”

 

   He stared at her. “Tia.”

 

   She smiled wider. “Don’t worry, it isn’t a law. I just like it when you say it.”

 

   Another non-cruel, nonviolent smile formed involuntarily on his mouth. He felt it rise and curiously fingered his mouth with his free hand (the other was still gripping potatoes).

 

   She watched him, puzzled.

 

   He brought his attention back to her. “I like your name, little human: Tia. Tia it shall be.”

 

   “Go on and eat!” she said. “But … _wait!_ ”

 

   She jumped up and hurried to the pantry and grabbed a smaller plate, which she loaded with potatoes. She returned and sat down.

 

   As he ate, she did too, and just like he did, ravenously with her hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After cleaning up, she took the time to explain her mother’s “laws.”

 

   “She hates it when I use all the hot water in the morning,” Tia explained. “It’s when she bathes. That’s definitely a law.”

 

   Krapp nodded. “Hot water.”

 

   “And … and … oh, yeah. She likes the bathroom to stay clean.”

 

   “Clean … bathroom?”

 

   “Yeah! Bathroom! It’s part of the washroom!” She studied him. “You _do_ know what a bathroom is, don’t you?”

 

   “It is …” he rasped “… it is the place where humans … bathe—? Did you not show it to me the evening last?”

 

   “Yes,” she nodded happily. “It’s also where to go when you need to poo or pee.”

 

   “Poo … pee.” He nodded unsurely.

 

   “Yeah … umm … You eat food or drink water, and later you have to go.”

 

   “Go. Go where?”

 

   Tia laughed. “No! Just go! The bathroom!”

 

   “I am sorry, little one—Tia—I do not understand …”

 

   Tia looked down at the table for a long time, then nodded excitedly. “I’ve got it! C’mon!”

 

   She grabbed his hand.

 

   They stood and left the house. The light of the day was oppressive, but the trees’ shadows kept it from become unbearable.

 

   Behind the home was a corral. A horse waited in the enclosure, eating grass. It spied him and lifted its head and watched him.

 

   Orcs and horses did _not_ get along. If a horse spied an Orc, it generally snorted and galloped away, or, as with warhorses, charged. Getting on one was impossible. Hell, getting _near_ one was!

 

   But this one, only scant feet away, did nothing but continue to stare at him. With an indifferent grunt it lowered its head and continued eating.

 

   He gawked.

 

   Was he even an Orc now? Had something happened to him that changed him forever, that made him utterly unique from his kind?

 

   “Krapp? Are you all right?”

 

   He gazed down. Tia stared up at him with concern.

 

   He gathered his wits and nodded without conviction.

 

   That was enough for her. She looked back at the horse. “He’s mine. His name is Shygar. His momma is Momma’s horse. Her name is Lloril’i. Go on, pet him!”

 

   She released his hand.

 

   “I …” he began.

 

   “Go on, go on!” she said. She got behind him and gave him a push. “He’s really nice. I can tell he likes you. Go on!”

 

   A horse … like an _Orc?_

 

   He took a couple uneasy steps forward. Shygar lifted his head, his mouth working steadily on long strands of hay.

 

   He took another step forward, then two more. He was within touching distance. With great caution he reached and touched the stallion’s nose.

 

   He had always wondered what horses felt like. Now he knew. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face, or a tiny squeal of delight from escaping his mouth.

 

   “Well …” he breathed. _“Well …_ A magnificent beast … magnificent …”

 

   It was no wonder that Wargs couldn’t defeat these! He had ridden Wargs before. Their hair was brittle and pointed and crawling with fleas and ticks. They were foul-tempered and hard to hang on to. But this …

 

   _“Magnificent …”_ he said again.

 

   The horse whinnied contentedly and went back to eating.

 

   But not before lifting its tail.

 

   “See?” exclaimed Tia. “That’s poo! Do you get it now?”

 

   He did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He tried to explain that Orcs didn’t have to “poo” or “pee” all that much. When she asked how much, he tried thinking.

 

   “Days … I think.”

 

   “Days? You don’t have to go for _days?_ ”

 

   He thought for a long time, then hesitantly nodded.

 

   “Wow.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

She looked with him down at her bed. “I thought I’d washed myself better. I’m sorry, Tia.”

 

   She gazed at him and then punched his arm. It wasn’t hard, but it surprised him. He stared.

 

   “This is dirty? _This?_ You haven’t _seen_ dirty! If I spend a day in the corral or go play by the stream I’ll _easily_ get dirtier than this. This is nothing! C’mon, I’ll show you how to change the sheets. It’s easy, and now it’ll be fun!”

 

   “Why is that?”

 

   “Because you’ll be helping me!”

 

   He helped her change the sheets. He actually watched more than helped, with an effort to remember the dizzying array of steps. When she finished, she noticed his puzzlement and said, “You’ll get it eventually, don’t worry.”

 

   Her mother ( _Andylyr_ , he reminded himself) walked through the front door that moment. Tia grabbed his hand. “C’mon! I think she’s got something for you. C’mon!”

 

   Andylyr was at the kitchen table, where she set down a large cloth bag stuffed full. She gazed at Tia, who rushed up for a kiss, and then at Krapp.

 

   “Mr. Krapp,” she said, “I’d like you to come and take a look at these. Some should fit you. I used to be a seamstress and have a pretty good eye for size. Will you come here, please?”

 

   Krapp approached her. He gazed at the bag. Andylyr opened it and started pulling out … clothes?

 

   Clothes!

 

   Shirts and pants, a belt, even shoes! There was a hat; it was stuffed in so tight that it had deformed. Before he could touch it Andylyr took it and punched it back into shape, then handed it to him.

 

   “Try it on,” she said. “It won’t fit, but it’ll give me a good start as to know what to do.”

 

   He took the hat—it had a very wide brim and pleasant contours on the top, and was made of leather—and tried putting it on. His ears got in the way, and so merely balanced on the tops of them. Tia held up, then squealed with laughter. “Oh, that’s _really cute!_ Oh Krapp!” She ran to him and threw her arms around him.

 

   Andylyr was smiling wryly, and chuckled softly. “I must agree,” she said. She glanced at Tia. “Lloril’i is probably getting grumpy. Would you get her stabled and fed, love?”

 

   “Okay, Momma! Krapp, do you want to come and help?”

 

   “He can’t, love. He’s going to try these clothes on.”

 

   “But I want to help! Can’t I help?”

 

   Krapp, confused utterly by the day, then did something that seemed both part of him and not part of him. He reached and cupped Tia’s cheek and rasped quietly, “Go on, young one. You can help later. I promise.”

 

   Tia, frustrated, sighed and then hurried out the front door for Lloril’i. Before she closed it she said, “Try your clothes on slowly, okay? That way I won’t miss much!”

 

 **~~*~~**  
**[Shawn Michel de Montaigne](https://shawnmicheldemontaigne.blogspot.com/)**


	4. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krapp finds himself in unfamiliar territory. There are humans who like him! More amazing still, they want to make him part of their home! Read on!

  _The Orc, so believeth he the last of his kind, did find comfort, for a human family had taken him in and had called him their own._

 

~~*~~

 

HE DREAMED of war. Too often.

 

   He had seen more than his share of it, being an Orc. Ending life, not creating it, was what Orcs did best. Making mayhem. Destroying. Usurping. Perverting and profaning.

 

   Even so, at his nastiest he was little more than one who hung out near the back and pretended to the violence and hate his brethren most assuredly felt towards humans, and which he did not.

 

   He’d seen it come the other way from humans—men. Destruction. Mayhem. Usurping. Perverting and profaning. Violence and hate.

 

   There were no female humans in battle. Why? He had heard rumors, of course, idle talk, amongst his kind: female humans—“women”—were weak and frail. They existed to breed more humans, to maintain human homes while their stronger male mates went out and did battle and gathered food.

 

   If such were true, he considered after waking on the tenth day after being rescued and taken to a home with nothing but human females, then where was the male that belonged to _this_ home? And wouldn’t it then be wrong for the human mother named Andylyr to be gathering food and the like? It seemed she did everything, and just as well as any human male possibly could. He didn’t understand.

 

   Andylyr had put him to work in the garden. She taught him about plants, how to water them and take care of them and to know when they were ready for eating.

 

   He held up a freshly pulled carrot still shedding rich black soil from its long orange root and stared at it in disgust his first day on the job. “Eat? This?”

 

   Andylyr, kneeling a few feet away, chuckled. “You may find that they taste better than animal or human flesh. Besides, you love potatoes. Those are roots—plants.”

 

   That shocked him. He _did_ love potatoes!

 

   Orcs didn’t love potatoes; they loved flesh! Bloody, wriggling, protesting flesh! But then he thought: Didn’t they have to subsist on maggoty bread of some sort while marching into battle? It tasted like dirt. The maggots tasted better, frankly. In fact, that’s what Orcs did. They used the bread to breed maggots, which they picked out of the bread and ate.

 

   He brought his gaze to her. “I fear … I fear I am something … else now. Not … Orc.”

 

   She saw his consternation and came closer by way of walking on her knees. She put soothing hand on his shoulder. “Or,” she offered, “maybe you are still an Orc, just a better one. Maybe you evolved.”

 

   “Evolved?” he asked, confused. The word felt odd on his tongue—odder, that is, than all the other human words he had somehow magically learned and used now. The Black Tongue he could scarcely recall now.

 

   “It is a process of becoming,” she explained. “Who you are changes, adapts, grows, learns new things to survive. Maybe that’s what happened to you, Mr. Krapp. What do you think?”

 

   He didn’t know what to think, so he studied the carrot instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It didn’t take long to discover that he had “evolved” into a being that had a natural feel for carrots. And potatoes. And tomatoes. And corn. In fact, if it grew from the soil, he had an affinity for it, and somehow knew what it needed to thrive. A month after that conversation, Andylyr came out to the garden, which he had expanded almost two-fold and was lost in stalks of ten-foot-tall corn. She found him and smiled.

 

   “An Orc farmer. I’d laugh at that, but look at what you have done here!”

 

   Krapp didn’t just know how to grow these vegetables and fruits, he found he had a taste for little else.

 

   It helped that Andylyr was a marvelous cook. She knew how to make stews and soups, delicious breads and sweet pies, and create colorful salads that made his mouth water just thinking of them. It came to him that in all the time he had been here, he had eaten flesh—chicken flesh—only one time, and that was the day he met Tia while lying injured next to the creek.

 

   Try as he might, he couldn’t find where the human mother kept the birds, so he asked.

 

   “We don’t keep them,” she explained. “They are brought to the village by another farmer. We only eat them occasionally.”

 

   Which was fine with Krapp. He enjoyed the chicken flesh, but not as much as his vegetables.

 

   _His_ vegetables. He liked that thought, that they were his.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rothtia helped him in the garden almost every day.

 

   “I need to thank you for that as well,” remarked Andylyr on a day that she was out of earshot. “I couldn’t get her to help me out here, not without a rafter full of complaints. Oh, she’ll spend all day with the horses, but I think she’d rather starve than get in here and weed or water. That is, until you showed up. Now she’s got a green thumb!”

 

   Krapp held up his hands and inspected his thumbs, which were not green but black. “Green?” he asked, glancing at her.

 

   She chuckled and squeezed his shoulder.

 

   “You have added a great deal to our little family, Mr. Krapp. Would you consider staying with us permanently? This could be your home if you want. You are more than welcome to call it such.”

 

   He didn’t know what to say, so he simply stared. “Home?” he eventually got out.

 

   She smiled. “Home.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The garden enclosure behind the house, where the bulk of the home’s tools were kept, was where he slept, despite Andylyr and Tia’s insistence that he make himself comfortable inside the house. When he finally relented, Andylyr said, “I will make a proper room for you, and also a proper bathroom. One that meets an Orc’s needs. I’m glad you finally came around, Mr. Krapp.”

 

   “What … does ‘mister’ mean?” he asked.

 

   “It is a title of respect. At least, that’s how I use it. I figured you could use a little respect in these times. Does it bother you?”

 

   He glanced at Tia, who shook her head enthusiastically, so he did too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was glad that he was going to get his own room. He was _especially_ glad that he was going to get his own bathroom.

 

   He noticed that whenever he used the bathroom, both Andylyr and Tia would avoid it for hours afterward. Krapp got the courage up and asked Tia why on a day that Andylyr went into the village for goods. He knew she would always tell him the truth.

 

   “Because …” she began, wrinkling her nose and looking sheepish, “… because your poo is kinda … smelly?”

 

   “Isn’t all poo smelly?” he asked, embarrassed.

 

   “Yeah, but _your_ poo …” She shook her head and waved a hand in front of her nose. _“Whew!”_

 

   “I am sorry, Tia,” he said. He felt like crawling into his hay bed in the tool shed and hiding.

 

   She laughed and punched his shoulder. He’d gotten used to that behavior from her. It was her way of saying that she was still his friend and that whatever it was was no big deal.

 

   “Momma’s gonna make you your own bathroom!” she exclaimed.

 

   “I will be happy to help her construct it,” he said, grateful that his poo was no longer being directly discussed. She is very talented, ‘Momma.’ ”

 

   “I know!” cried Tia. “But she won’t need your help after the beginning.”

 

   “Beginning?”

 

   Tia nodded, but added nothing else.

 

   “Will she be bringing men from the village to help?” he asked, concerned.

 

   Tia’s smile dissolved. “Oh, no. She wouldn’t do that!”

 

   “Then how will she build it all by herself? Surely …”

 

   Tia’s smile returned. “You’ll see. Just wait!”

 

   They turned their attention back to the garden and began working again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the weeks that followed, both Tia and Andylyr showed him how to take care of the horses.

 

   His ankle still gave him trouble on occasion. The day he was sure it was completely healed, he received a huge surprise: a saddle made especially for him. With Tia’s help, they got it on Shygar.

 

   “Go on!” yelled Tia excitedly as Andylyr watched from the shade under the stall. “Here. Let me help. You’ve seen me do this a thousand times. You can do it! There! Put your foot in and climb up! Don’t worry, Shygar _likes_ you!”

 

   After another moment of hesitation, he grabbed the pommel and pulled himself astride the horse, who grumbled contentedly.

 

   “My …” he whispered after getting settled. “A _magnificent_ beast! Truly … _magnificent_.”

 

   Only the most brutal of Orcs or Uruk-hai got to ride a Warg. He, of course, was never considered for such an honor.

 

   He never thought he’d ride a horse. The feeling was as exhilarating as anything he’d ever felt.

 

   “Keep hold of Shygar, honey, and walk him around,” urged Andylyr with a patient smile. “How are you doing up there, Mr. Krapp?”

 

   “I …” he replied, but did not finish. He glanced at her. His look must have conveyed how he was doing, because she said, “Excellent. When you’re done, come on inside. I think it’ll be time to get started on your bedroom and bathroom.”

 

   “Oh, good!” said Tia. “C’mon, Shygar. Let’s go around the corral a few times! Hold on to the reins, Krapp!”

 

   Sitting astride the colt, Krapp felt, for the first time in his life, like a being worthy of respect. He felt like his own person, like he mattered. It was such an astonishing feeling that it kept his mouth closed and his eyes focused well beyond the corral’s fence. Tia must have noticed, because she said nothing, only looking up at him occasionally and smiling.

 

   When he dismounted an hour later, she shouted, “C’mon, Krapp! We’ve got to be quick!”

 

   He came back to himself and blinked, “Where … little one, do we need to go?” It felt like he’d just gotten up here!

 

   She didn’t answer, but grabbed his hand and tugged. “C’mon! We’ve got to be really fast!”

 

   He followed her from the corral. Shygar snorted behind him.

 

   Andylyr was seated at the kitchen table as he got pulled inside. “Come and sit next to me, Mr. Krapp. Please be quick, if you would.”

 

   Krapp glanced at Tia, who nodded enthusiastically, then pushed him towards the empty chair.

 

   He went to it and sat.

 

   “Please take my hands,” said Andylyr, offering hers.

 

   Krapp glanced down at them, then did as asked. Andylyr’s human female hands were soft. She squeezed his, said, “Close your eyes, Mr. Krapp, and think as hard as you can about your time aboard Shygar. Go on. Quickly, if you please.”

 

   He closed his eyes. It was easy to think about how he felt astride Shygar, because he had never felt anything like that before. If he wanted anything in this odd life, it was to feel that feeling all the time.

 

   Andylyr murmured, “Woo! That’s pretty powerful stuff, Mr. Krapp.”

 

   He opened his eyes, startled. She was staring at him with surprise. “I believe I’ve got more than enough to work on. Let’s go outside.”

 

   She stood and started for the back door. Tia grabbed his hand again. “C’mon!”

 

   He stood and followed.

 

   He hadn’t noticed that his sensitivity to the sun had waned a little these past days and weeks until just now, as they stood in a bright patch of sunlight pouring through the high boughs next to the home. He glanced up at the beam of light for as long as he could. It looked like one of those heavenly beams that used to illuminate Minas Tirith from a distance, and which looked like Heaven’s own favor pouring down upon Men. It was such a maddening sight that Orcs constantly and bitterly complained about it.

 

   He blinked and glanced down at Tia, who kept hold of his hand. She was watching him with a playful smile.

 

   Andylyr knelt in the middle of the beam. She stared down at the needle-and-leaf-covered ground and ran her hands an inch or so above it as though looking for a hot spot of some kind. She found it—whatever it was—and closed her eyes and pressed her hands fully onto the earth.

 

   “Tia, if you would, please. Hurry, honey,” she instructed.

 

   “Come on,” whispered Tia, pulling him towards Andylyr. Krapp followed, and then knelt next to Andylyr at Tia’s urging.

 

   “Put your hands on the ground like Momma. Do it quick!” she whispered. Andylyr looked like she had gone into a trance.

 

   Krapp did as told, confused.

 

   “Now think of Shygar and riding her again. Quick, do it!” Tia whispered.

 

   That was easy to do. The moment he did, Andylyr said in a monotone voice, “Good. That’s good. Tia, go ahead. Mr. Krapp, I need you to concentrate.”

 

   Tia knelt. She had a small knife in her hand. She said, “This will only hurt for a second, Krapp,” and quickly cut his forearm. He went to withdraw, shocked, but she sat on his hands and, looking back at him, said, “Concentrate!”

 

   He tried; he really did. But it was difficult to while not being totally confused and alarmed! Tia’s knife had a thin streak of his green blood on it. She tipped the blade, and the blood dripped off onto the ground between his hands and Andylyr’s.

 

   “Concentrate!” urged Tia. “Go on, close your eyes! Think of Shygar! _Hurry!_ ”

 

   Fighting confusion, alarm, and now the sting of the cut along his forearm, he reluctantly closed his eyes. He fought to think of Shygar once more, and his feeling atop him. It had been such a powerful moment that, despite the absolute weirdness of this moment, it came back to him instantly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He woke on his back in deep night.

 

   He sat up, startled, and gazed around. He was ... outside ... in the same spot that he was during the day!

 

   They had pulled his boots off, covered him with a soft down-filled blanket, and put a pillow under his head.

 

   He pulled the cover off and stood. This was very odd indeed!

 

   His Orc eyes adjusted very quickly to the near pitch blackness of the night. (At least that ability hadn’t waned!)

 

   The cut Rothtia had given him ... was gone! Healed!

 

   He went to walk inside, but stubbed his toe on a rock or a log.

 

   Bent at the waist and cursing richly, he glared at what he had struck.

 

   It was a pole ... a large wooden pole that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. It stood at least two feet high.

 

   He looked around. There were at least four others surrounding him. They appeared to be growing out of the earth!

 

   He watched through the night as the room and bathroom Andylyr had promised him rose out of the earth like a hollow tree, taking shape around him.

 

   As the first rays of sunlight peeked through the forest, his bedroom and bathroom completed themselves!

 

**~~*~~  
[Shawn Michel de Montaigne](https://shawnmicheldemontaigne.blogspot.com/)**

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Thus Created

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Orc named Krapp faces not one, but two, momentous decisions. Read on!

_The Orc nameth Krapp, created soulless, thus did discover he had one._

 

~~*~~

 

THE WAR had left countless widows, and innumerable men who’d survived, but were invalids from injuries. Hunger was rampant. Despair scented the air like rotting flowers.

 

   And children without homes. For many women were killed too. Even though they did not fight, women were often brutalized by the armies of men as they marched through.

 

   The village Andylyr visited was named Boverroth, and did not appear on any maps. The reason why was her mother, who had fallen in love with a Mithrandia named Jáfia.

 

   Jáfia raped and killed Andylyr’s mother—with Andylyr, their child, waiting in the womb. Physicians cut Andylyr out just in time, and she survived.

 

   Jáfia didn’t. Confronted by his brethren near what soon became the Black Gates, the Mithrandia judged Jáfia, then burned his body to ash.

 

   The cause of the deadly conflict between Jáfia and Rothtia (whom Tia was named after) was never discovered. What became known was the curse Jáfia put on Boverroth. It made the entire village effectively invisible to outsiders. Worse, it erased all memory of its existence from the minds of men, Elfkind, Orckind, Dwarves, even Mithrandia. Maps were redrawn. Those staring down at them and seeing the designation of Boverroth shook their heads. There was no such village!

 

   Those who had family or relatives from there forgot about them. If confronted by them, they’d stare blankly back and claim they were thieves or con men. Whole families were forever sundered.

 

   In less than a generation, Boverroth disappeared from all recollection and history.

 

   Many of the villagers left. Orphaned by the curse, they made their way into Middle Earth and started anew. If they ever spoke of Boverroth, they were met with scorn and laughter, or treated as insane and hung in public squares. Many, lonely and desperate, killed themselves.

 

   Somehow the village survived. The citizens of Boverroth found their cursed status very freeing. An unspoken oath passed between the citizenry never to speak of their quiet enclave nestled against the forested foothills of Morgai. If they ventured forth to other lands and the cities therein and were asked, they’d lie. “I’m from Minas Tirith, my good sir!”

 

   Minas Tirith, which was visible just over the summits of the nearest western hills.

 

   Boverroth began growing again, even prospering. It became a thing of pride to be from there. And when the war came, it became lifesaving to be a citizen.

 

   For men from anywhere else couldn’t see it, and neither could Elves, and neither could Orcs or Dwarves or Mithrandia. Not even Sauron could see it.

 

   The war raged, but Boverrothians were safe. They kept up with the horrific news pouring in from the front, and they prayed for their estranged families. The Village Council made a proclamation: that any man who refused to join the war would not be judged a coward.

 

   A hundred or so men felt guilty for not fighting and left to join the army (all but a handful perished); but by and large the populace chose to remain safely ensconced within their cursed anonymity.

 

   “I do not understand,” said Krapp as Andylyr finished speaking and went to the sink and began drying dishes left there by Tia, who was out riding Shygar.

 

   “Go on,” said Andylyr, glancing over her shoulder.

 

   “The village you visit ... is _invisible?_ ”

 

   She shook her head. “No. It’s visible to all. Anyone can see it. What the curse does is erase the image instantly from a person’s mind once they turn away. It also ... what’s the word? ... It dissuades people from looking in that direction in the first place once they get close enough.”

 

   “Travelers too?” asked Krapp, who had joined her at the sink and put the dishes into the cupboards with her thanks. “What if travelers run across it?”

 

   She shook her head again. “They don’t. The roads leading there are cursed too. I’ve watched travelers. They treat the village as though it isn’t a village but a great cliff or mountainside, or something very dangerous. I’ve seen maps. Most describe a dangerous wood surrounding an impassable peak. Some show a canyon. Some show nothing but mountains and forest. It’s incredible that the mapmakers haven’t consulted each other. That’s how powerful the curse is.”

 

   “Amazing,” whispered Krapp.

 

   “Indeed,” said Andylyr.

 

   “And you and Tia ... are cursed?”

 

   “Yes.”

 

   “Yes. Yes, of course you are,” said Krapp. “Of course.”

 

   He glanced at her. “Am I?”

 

   “No. Which is why I’m talking to you about it. Actually, it’s one of several reasons why I’m talking to you about it.”

 

   Krapp waited.

 

   “You have become ... well, Mr. Krapp, you have become a valued and honored member of our family this past year. Tia ... my goodness! She looks upon you as a friend and a mentor. She’d walk to the ends of Middle Earth for you! And I ...”

 

   She seemed to struggle with words. Her eyes glistened.

 

   Krapp had learned enough about human emotions and expressions the past year to know what she was trying to say but couldn’t. He did what humans would do, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

 

   “I feel the same way about you,” he said. “For you and the little one, I too would walk to the ends of Middle Earth.”

 

   Andylyr blinked rapidly and smiled.

 

   They went back to drying and putting away dishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main reason she had brought up The Curse of Boverroth (as it was formally called) was that, as a beloved member of her family ...

 

   “I want to know if you’d like to be cursed as well,” she said.

 

   It was suppertime, and Tia had returned from her ride. She glanced excitedly at him and nodded enthusiastically. “Please, Krapp, _please?_ ” she begged. “It’ll protect you!”

 

   “Tia,” said her mother warningly. “We don’t know that. It _might_ protect him. We just don’t know.”

 

   Tia was turning into a beautiful young human. She had grown three inches since rescuing Krapp. Her eleventh birthday was a month ago, and he had watched in puzzlement and wonder as Andylyr made her a “cake” (delicious, though it looked like a white sculpted mound of horse droppings) and brought her gifts, including a lovely blue and white-checkered dress. She was still a here-and-there bundle of energy and enthusiasm; but a vein of considered quiet had settled into her, one that increasingly kept her from speaking until she thought matters through. She had become much more concerned with appearances and maintaining her strawberry-blonde hair, which had grown down to her shoulder blades. There were children her age in the village, and Andylyr occasionally allowed her to ride Shygar there to be with them. That was where she had spent the day.

 

   “What must I do if I wish to be cursed?” asked Krapp.

 

   “Well, now, that’s the difficult part,” said Andylyr, bringing a fork-speared piece of buttered squash to her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, sipped some water, and added, “Over the years we’ve found a way to include others in the curse—which means adding you as a member of the village. That won’t be easy. You are, after all ...”

 

   “... an Orc,” he sighed.

 

   “My best friend!” said Tia defiantly. She punched his arm.

 

   He smiled uneasily at her, then glanced back at her mother. “I am sorry, Andylyr,” he said, “I am still uncertain.... Why would I want to do this—to be cursed?”

 

   “The curse would _protect_ you, silly!” said Tia before her mother could stop her. “I already told you!”

 

   “That’s our hope,” said Andylyr. “Boverrothians are rarely harassed outside the curse’s border. The curse makes us inconsequential to foreigners of all races. They don’t look at us unless we work to make our presence known, and even then it isn’t sure. That would very much favor you should you ever find yourself outside the curse’s borders—for obvious reasons.”

 

   “Because I’m an Orc,” he murmured.

 

   He thought of refusing right away, and made to say so, but stopped himself just before speaking. Something deep inside warned him to shut up and think of it.

 

   He had gone nowhere in the year he had been here. It was very easy to see himself never leaving this blessed home and family. He’d be perfectly happy becoming old and dying in his comfy bed right here without ever again venturing back into Middle Earth.

 

   But the war had taught him that nothing remained untouched by change. And many times that change was harsh if not deadly.

 

   He glanced down at his clothes when it came suddenly clear to him. “These are ... from soldiers ... _dead_ soldiers ...”

 

   He looked up. Andylyr nodded sadly.

 

   “What must I endure ... to be cursed?”

 

   Tia spoke up. “It’s really cool! It’s called the Smiting Stone! I ...”

 

   She glanced at her mother, who was shaking her head.

 

   She glanced at Krapp. “Sorry.”

 

   “Tia knows our history perhaps more than I’m comfortable with,” said Andylyr, smiling with strained patience at her. “Where Jáfia was destroyed by his fellow Mithrandia is a stone. It was where he was standing when judgment was passed on him. It is known only to Boverrothians. It is at the Black Gates.”

 

   Krapp shook his head emphatically. “We cannot go there! I was there when Sauron died! The land! It’s _gone!_ ”

 

   “There is a canyon now, yes,” said Andylyr. “We have sent scouts in the past year to investigate. But the Smiting Stone remains. It sits on the edge of the canyon, right at the lip.”

 

   Krapp stared.

 

   “If I am caught out there ...”

 

   “If the Council approves you, there will be guards escorting you. And I will be there too.”

 

   Krapp caught the subtext. He had learned much this past year. He had studied Andylyr and Tia—their expressions, how they walked or talked when they were in various moods, how they looked in different clothes or even differences when they ate or drank various foods and beverages.

 

   If the Orcs had bothered learning about their enemy, he reasoned, perhaps they wouldn’t have been so easily defeated! Instead they came at Men with the brute stupidity of a hammer, and were in their arrogance shattered.

 

   Tia had fallen silent. She stared at Krapp as he stared at her mother.

 

   “You will be there too ...” he began.

 

   She chuckled soundlessly. “You continually surprise me, Mr. Krapp,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. She nodded. “I am the love child of a Mithrandia and a human.”

 

   “Your powers,” he whispered. He chuckled, which made Tia chuckle (she loved it when he chuckled, because it sounded “very cute,” she told him).

 

   Andylyr shrugged and nodded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As far as history could tell, there was no such thing as a female Mithrandia.

 

   “I’m not a full Mithrandia,” she declared after the dishes had been cleaned and Tia had gone to bed. Krapp sat with her in the living room.

 

   She had served him something called “whiskey” in a small glass. It tasted like Warg piss, and it burned going down, and he had coughed at first, and almost gagged. But then a pleasant warmth spread from his belly into his fingertips, and a smile formed almost involuntarily on his mouth, and he sipped again, this time much more tentatively, and the warmth increased.

 

   He hissed in satisfaction, relaxed in his seat, and sighed.

 

   “It tastes like Warg piss,” he rasped, staring at the liquid in his glass. “But ... for some reason ... I cannot identify ... I like it!”

 

   She laughed soundlessly and sipped from her glass, then set it down.

 

   “I have the power to heal. I have the power to ... well, loosely put, grant wishes. It’s how I created your bedroom and bathroom. I saw that you were happy here. I have a strong kinship with the earth, though maybe not as strong as yours!”

 

   “When I met Tia, she pretended to be the physician she says looks after her. But ... if you can heal ... then ...”

 

   Andylyr grinned. “We visit the village physician to keep up appearances. Villagers don’t know about my powers. It’s a secret I’ve kept my entire life. Only Tia knows about them. And now ... you.”

 

   More subtext, he reasoned as he watched her. What was she trying to tell him?

 

   “I truly am part of your family,” he said after another sip.

 

   She leaned forward and refreshed his glass, put the cap back on the bottle, and leaned back.

 

   “I wouldn’t ask you to risk your life if this weren’t of the utmost importance to me, to Tia, to _us_ , this family. That includes you, Mr. Krapp. I’ve said it before: Tia would walk to the ends of the earth for you. I can’t and won’t ignore that. I just can’t. She’s never had a father. She’s never had a single male in her life worth a damn. Until you. You’re worth a damn to her. And to me.”

 

   Krapp didn’t know what to say. He stared at the amber liquid in his grip. He took another sip and nodded.

 

   This was where he wanted to be. Here. Right here. Forever. And he would die to protect these two.

 

   He looked up. Andylyr waited with a pleading smile.

 

   He nodded again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of Andylyr’s Mithrandic “connections to the earth” involved, funnily enough, plumbing. Specifically, hot water. She had, over the years, coaxed water from a hidden hot springs nearby towards the home. She had somehow integrated the earth beneath the home into a network of pipes that diverted hot water into the kitchen and bathrooms, including his.

 

   The first time he had a hot bath was almost a religious experience. It occurred a little more than a month ago, just after she’d finally gotten the water to his spigot. It was an interesting sight watching her on her hands and knees as she very slowly advanced towards his bathroom. She’d move only an inch or so every few minutes. Certainly not faster than that.

 

   She’d work at night, after dinner, and only if she wasn’t totally beat from the day, which occurred maybe one out of every four days. She was spending time in Boverroth and nearby villages with widows and injured men, and with orphans, whom she worked at finding new homes for. When she could (and always surreptitiously), she called up her healing powers. It was trying, exhausting, emotional work.

 

   In order to lend a hand, he decided to learn to cook, so that when she returned she wouldn’t be saddled with yet another draining chore.

 

   His initial efforts were met with forced smiles and kind excuses for why both were “already full” from snacks they had earlier, but also with encouragement to continue trying.

 

   (Truth be told, even he couldn’t find much to recommend them.)

 

   He continued trying. The forced smiles and kind excuses slowly disappeared. A few months later he received his first genuine compliments, the very first coming from Tia (“This is good, Krapp! What is it?”), and the second following immediately from Andylyr, who, trying to figure out what she was eating, swallowed tentatively and said, “This is quite interesting—and tasty!”

 

   Soon they had their favorites, and would often request them:

 

   “Krapp, I’m really hungry for your Grumpy Orc Stew!”

 

   “Mr. Krapp, I could really go for that dish you made recently—what did you call it?—‘Stuffed Potatoes in Krapp’s Own Gravy Sauce’? That was quite good. Would you mind making that again soon?”

 

   As with gardening, he soon found that he had a knack for integrating the bounty he tended outside, and very much enjoyed experimenting.

 

   Andylyr had gone to the village all day yesterday, so he made dinner (his own tasty mushroom and cheese sandwiches), anxious for her return. She had gone not only to help the orphans and veterans, but to meet with the Village Council to request his formal membership into Boverroth’s citizenry by means of the Curse of Jáfia.

 

   She returned looking very tired but hopeful. “I spoke with Strurilang,” she told him. “She’s the Council Chair, the village’s most powerful citizen. I told her ... well, I told her the truth, that you’re an Orc. She was alarmed at first, but then calmed as I explained what a kind, helpful, decent soul you are. She wants to meet you—but privately, and in secret, too. She believes that the villagers aren’t quite ready to welcome an Orc into the village, especially the veterans and widows. Are you open to meeting with Strurilang privately, Mr. Krapp?”

 

   He held up.

 

   “You look very concerned,” she went on, “and I can’t blame you. But I’ve known Strurilang for many years. She’s an honorable woman. She was one of my mother’s best friends. I can’t really say much about the others on the Council, but it may not matter in the end what they think. Strurilang has great influence in Boverroth.”

 

   He took a steadying breath. “I fear I will never ... be seen as ...”

 

   “Worthy?” She asked. “Equal? Human?”

 

   “I am concerned only with the first two. I am not human.”

 

   “No,” she declared, “you are not. You are a member of a race that was bred for one purpose—to destroy Men. You were bred soulless,” she went on, looking increasingly determined and upset, “but I ask what is worse: being born with a soul, as all human beings are, then destroying that soul via greed and violence, or simply behaving as you were _born_ to behave? What do you think, Mr. Krapp?”

 

   Tia had long since gone to bed per Andylyr’s insistence so that she could speak to Krapp alone. She had protested, as she had a few nights before, but did as told. He tucked her in, as had long since become customary, and closed the door behind him. “We’ll figure it out,” she declared before he stood and left. “It will all work out, Krapp. Just watch!”

 

   He thought that he wanted a hot bath. That sounded really good. A bath and bed. Then a nice day working in the garden and tending the horses, which he also enjoyed doing.

 

   Andylyr watched him patiently.

 

   “I think that you think differently than most others of your race,” he said quietly, and not without a strain of hopelessness in his voice.

 

   “Which one?” she asked, giving him a look of pained sympathy that told him she had heard that hopelessness. “I’m a half-breed—part Mithrandia, which is entirely comprised of men, as in males, and part human! _And_ I’m a woman! I’m a half-breed human!” she exclaimed. “It’s the race of _Men_ , after all. _Men_. It was a war between Sauron and _Men_. Not humans! Not humanity! Not women! _Men!_ As though half of the species doesn’t exist!

 

   “You see, Mr. Krapp, I can sense your fear and trepidation. I know both quite intimately. I’m a woman in a _man’s_ world! I’m thirty-nine years old and can’t find a human male partner because all these so-called _men_ are intimidated and put off that I am independent and don’t need them. I can take care of myself, _and_ a daughter!”

 

   She stood and sat next to him. “I know what you’re going through, Mr. Krapp. I really do. You’re an Orc, and I’m a woman. It’s no exaggeration to say that we’re literally treated no differently in that—” she pointed emphatically—“out there, in a _man’s_ world!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andylyr had gone back to Boverroth in the morning to meet once more with Strurilang. She wanted to firm up the meeting, to ensure it stayed a secret, and to plan the next steps. Last night after their talk, Krapp had gone straight to bed instead of having his bath. He was depressed and exhausted.

 

   He didn’t sleep well at all. He tossed and turned all night to the point that he decided when he woke that he would tell Andylyr that he had no interest in being cursed with the villagers, that he would like instead to remain here, at this home, and serve them, to be a valued member of their lives. That was all he wanted. He would take his chances that the world beyond would not intrude and harass him.

 

   He understood their desire to see that he remained safe. The curse would do that, especially against the wider world, which, he was certain, would forever despise Orcs. But the potential problems were too great to overcome. Boverroth was entirely peopled by humans who had, through tremendous effort, sacrifice, and blood, just defeated Sauron and his manufactured and soulless race of Orcs. The knowledge that one still lived would probably make them violent with rage. More so than they normally were.

 

   And so he had woken early to talk to Andylyr, who typically rose at sunrise. But she had already left for Boverroth.

 

   Frustrated, he made tea and waited for Tia to wake, which she did within the hour. He made her a cup and sat. She stared at him, then reached for his hand.

 

   “I never knew my father,” she said.

 

   He blinked. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder until now.

 

   “Your ... _father?_ ” he asked, dumbfounded.

 

   She stared into her cup, which issued lazy curls of steam.

 

   “Momma doesn’t talk about him. He was lost in a battle with Dwarves that were really evil.” She caught herself and said, quickly, “I mean, not evil, I guess ... I mean ...”

 

   “They were in league with Sauron,” he guessed.

 

   She nodded.

 

   “It was before he became ... you know ... super powerful. Before he got all those armies. He was making ... you know ...”

 

   She glanced sheepishly at him.

 

   “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

 

   “Do you believe the Orcs were ... you know ... evil?” she asked with obvious delicacy.

 

   He thought for a long time before answering.

 

   “They ... we ... I ... I ... _I_ was created with the intent to do evil. Does that make me, the creation, evil, or my creators?”

 

   She didn’t answer. She gazed at him with those sweet, understanding eyes, and he knew he loved her, that he was capable of love, that love lived in him, that he loved Andylyr as well, and this home, and this life.

 

   “Do you miss your father?” he asked.

 

   “I never knew him,” she repeated.

 

   “Oh, that’s right. Apologies, Tia.”

 

   “You’d be a good father,” she said. “You’re not mean, you’re helpful, you take care of the home, you tuck me in at night, and Momma really likes you!”

 

   He chuckled. “But I am not human.”

 

   She punched his arm. He expected it this time, and so it did not startle him. “But you’re still everything a good father _should_ be!”

 

   He massaged his arm where she had punched it. “Thank you, Tia.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andylyr didn’t return home when expected. Two hours later, Tia was frantic. The sun was setting; very soon it would be too dark to travel.

 

   “What should we do?” she cried. “Something must have happened to her! She would _never_ be this late! She knows how dangerous it is to be out after dark! She warns me all the time! What do we _do_ , Krapp?”

 

   For the Orc named Krapp, the sole survivor of his entire race, who would’ve been happy spending the rest of his days in this home taking care of these humans whom he had come to love and cherish, the moment his soul came fully alive was at hand, and he met it, by means of this grave choice, face-on.

 

   “I am an Orc,” he declared. “I was created to see at night, to move swiftly and stealthily at night, to be fearless and fearsome.”

 

   He stood and gazed down at Tia, who was crying. “Come, child. You know the way to Boverroth. Let us saddle Shygar and be quickly on our way.”

 

**~~*~~  
[Shawn Michel de Montaigne](https://shawnmicheldemontaigne.blogspot.com/)  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> You can keep up with me at my blog, ShawnMicheldeMontaigne.blogspot.com. Drop by and enjoy excerpts, new chapters, illustrations, and original fractal art!
> 
> See you there!


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